Zite
Latest
Flipboard update greatly improves this popular news app
Flipboard (free) has always been popular for reading news and following topics. The only downside is that it lacked any personalization. You got the topics you selected, but the app did not learn my favorite topics the way another news app -- Zite -- did. Times change. Earlier this year Flipboard purchased Zite to get the other company's smart personalization software, and a new Flipboard has been born, just now hitting the App Store. The new app looks better, it's easier to use, and it now has the kind of personalization that made Zite such a pleasure to use. When you launch the new app, you get more than 30,000 topics from which to choose. You can also search for topics not covered. Using the app I found a lot of the topics were right in line with what I wanted to read. Flipboard has always followed a magazine-type presentation, and the new app stays with that. The re-design is most noticeable on the iPhone version, which adds a tab bar for enhanced navigation. Looking at available stories involves swiping, or flipping up. Tap to read, then flip up again to go through the pages. It's very fast and responsive. Once you are in a story, it can be marked to indicate you weren't interested (a thumbs down) or you can save images to your camera roll. You can also open the story directly in Safari, email it, and send it to others via the usual social networks. Flipboard combines human curation with the smart Zite algorithms to make sure you are getting what you want to read. You no longer have to build magazines with Flipboard, which I thought was a weakness. Now the app learns and delivers the content you want, while still supporting magazine-style groupings of information. Flipboard delivers ads that will hopefully be relevant to readers. Flipboard will also, if you select it, deliver a news summary for you at 7 A.M local time. This is a much improved app that was already quite good. I'm still a big fan of Zite, but at some point I expect the Flipboard folks will sunset Zite, since much of the technology behind it has now been folded into Flipboard. I'm excited about the changes, and using the app is a pleasure, especially on an iPhone. If you've used the app in the past but moved on, it's worthy of a fresh look in this latest version. Flipboard requires iOS 7 or later and it has been optimized for the iPhone 5 and the new iPhone 6 series.
Zite newsreader sold to Flipboard
My all time favorite newsreader, Zite, has been sold by CNN to Flipboard for a deal reported by Reuters to be worth about US$60 million dollars. Flipboard has also struck a content deal with CNN. CNN bought Zite in 2011. In a conference call this morning, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue said Zite's technology drew Flipboard to the deal. Indeed to my mind what made Zite so attractive was the fact that it learns what I am interested in, while Flipboard does not. Zite is a terrific app, but was never really as popular as Flipboard. Zite will stay up and running until the Zite technology appears in a new version of Flipboard. Zite started as an iPad-only personalized news magazine, then moved to the iPhone. I just talked to Zite CEO Mark Johnson, who told me Flipboard is really impressed with Zite, and Johnson said he expects much of the user interface and technology that makes Zite so good to be quickly incorporated into Flipboard. The entire Zite team, minus Johnson, is heading to Flipboard, which I view as positive. Said Johnson, "Leaving is bittersweet, because Zite is the best product I've ever worked on and I can't imagine how I'd get my news without it. However, I'm confident that Zite + Flipboard will create a more magical product than Zite is today." Johnson adds that he's going to take a welcome three months off and go from there.
CNN's Flipboard rival now belongs to... Flipboard
CNN bought the news-aggregation service Zite to get a fast track in the mobile space, but it never gained much ground versus Zite's archrival, Flipboard. Accordingly, the TV broadcaster is throwing in the towel -- it just sold Zite to Flipboard for $60 million. The deal brings a raft of previously unavailable CNN content to Flipboard's news-curation platform, ranging from articles to video feeds for shows like Anderson Cooper 360 and Inside Politics. The network has also agreed to produce custom magazines (shown here) that go beyond what you'd normally find online. CNN's content is available today, and it's launching alongside a big Android app update that lets readers sign in with Google, control article density, curb their data use and attach photos to custom magazines.
Zite update is aimed at Google Reader orphans
With Google Reader fading into the sunset in July, more and more users are looking to replace its functionality. Zite for iOS (free) has some solutions that should please many news hounds. The app was originally born out of a desire to replace Google Reader with something that learned your interests and had a more compelling display. In a new release, available today, Zite is trying to go further to embrace what's good in Google Reader and add some bells and whistles. First, Zite has increased the prominence of sources. Those sources now appear in a topic drawer after you mark an article that you like. Another welcome feature is that articles grey out ofter you read them. One of the best additions is the ability to highlight sources that are obscure. Google Reader always had a bit of a signal to noise problem because the volume of feeds could overwhelm some of the smaller sources. Zite fixes that and will aggressively display more obscure content that you like. Zite has also made setting up the app easier for new users. There are on-screen guides and built-in tips that explains how Zite works and what you can expect. %Gallery-189143% There are some subtle interface changes as well this time around, and some new sponsored sources have been added. I've found Zite a frequent and preferred stop for my news browsing on iOS. What I'd really like to see is a Mac app that gets me the same content so I'm covered on my desktop and laptop. I'm told this is under consideration and I hope to see it sooner rather than later. Zite is a universal app and requires iOS 6 or later.
Google Reader partially rebuilt in Zite
Many of our readers are mourning the impending loss of Google Reader, which will cease to function on July 1. The folks at Zite have a kinda, sorta replacement that can be used from within the free Zite personalized news app. Zite has always been a bit of a hybrid, allowing you to access your Google Reader feeds manually, while providing the extra Zite-selected news, based on your interests. Here's how to bring the feeds in: Link your Google Reader account by clicking on the magnifying icon in Zite. You'll find an option for Google Reader Feeds in your Quicklist. The Zite developers want you to understand the Google Reader selection will only be found after you've restarted the app or added another category, something Zite will fix in the next release. Also note that not every RSS feed is currently indexed by Zite, which will improve over time. There is no folder support, but it is being worked on, and there is no ongoing syncing with Google Reader. The Zite solution is not perfect or complete, but should please some soon-to-be orphaned Google Reader fans. Other options on iOS are apps like RSS Runner and the TLDR Reader, along with Reeder and Feedler. If you want a wider landscape than Google Reader feeds provide, I'm a daily user of Flipboard and the Pulse News app.
A big update from Zite fixes a lot of user complaints
I was an early admirer of Zite, the free iOS app that learns what you're interested in and creates a magazine just for you. As Zite got more popular, some changes came in that drove some users wild. I thought the biggest offenses were the addition of CNN News (CNN owns Zite) and the What's Popular on Zite sections. Many users, myself included, felt that forcing content was unwarranted and unwanted in an app that prided itself for being personalized. Guess what? Zite has fixed these issues in the new Zite 2.2 version, released today. There is now a software switch that lets you turn those two features off. If you liked CNN News and What's Popular, you can turn them on, but if you don't, you can nuke both features. That's the kind of responsiveness that is rare in the software business. Zite CEO Mark Johnson and I have had several talks about the Zite feature set over the past months, and he agreed a lot of users weren't too happy with some of the changes. I think having a preference switch is the best of all possible worlds. There are some other notable new features in this latest Zite, which should be in the App Store as you read this. Topic tags can now be accessed directly from stories. A feature I really like is the ability to view an image gallery from photos in an article. Tap an image, and you get a slide show on a pleasing black background. There are a few other UI tweaks, but regular Zite users won't find anything to complain about. %Gallery-181439% I've been testing the new Zite for the last week or so. It is a better experience, and it stays focused on what I want to read, rather than shoveling other content to me that I don't want. There is one leftover I could live without, however: a small "What's featured" box. What's featured generally doesn't resonate with me, but perhaps people like it. I'd be happy to have the ability to switch it off. I'd also love to have Zite available on my Mac. You get hooked using it, and I think it would be great to have it on OS X. Despite all that, it's really nice to see a company listen to users and make changes, even though it may be in a direction different from the original concept. Even when I didn't like some of the changes Zite made, it was still my favorite personal news-aggregation app. With the changes, I think it is far out in front of the pack, presenting news I want in a pleasing, useful way that learns as you go. Zite is a universal app for both iPhone and iPad. It is optimized for the iPhone 5 and requires iOS 6 or later.
Zite releases version 2 of its popular news app
I've always found Zite to be the smart news aggregator I turn to first in the day. Because it learns from my choices, it gets better and better at creating a personal news magazine that has the topics I really love. Today Zite has pushed out a thoroughly revised update with a lot of new features, and, I'm afraid, a few glitches. First, the good. Zite has gone to 40,000 topics, 20x what the older version had. The Top Stories section has been expanded. More pages appear in that section, and the app claims to have gotten more intelligent about what goes into top stories. Pages have been re-designed and look fine, with a clean look and nice fonts. There are now topic tags, so at the end of an article you can explore more on the subject. A Headline News module shows the most talked about headlines in news, using technology from CNN Trends. CNN now owns Zite, so it's a logical addition. There is also a 'popular on Zite' section, that tells you what Zite readers are looking at. So what's not to like? First, the user interface has been drastically changed, and not necessarily for the better. In places, Zite's screens seem a bit busy, and some people may react negatively to this change. Zite seems a little slower than it was, especially in rendering a web page to fit in with the Zite graphic standards. I expect that will improve in coming updates. Also, several of the features are giving me content that I haven't chosen, but others have. To me, this recommended content seems to be contrary to what Zite is supposed to be about. It's personal news. I could care less what CNN thinks is important, and if I wanted to know I would go to the CNN app. Same for what other Zite users like. I may be in the minority here, but that's my take. Finally, there's a very welcome feature that lets you re-order your list of topics, but when I tried it on my iPad, Zite ignored many of the changes I made. It's obviously a bug, but I hope it gets fixed soon. I really do like Zite. It's my most used news app, but I have some mixed feelings about this update. I hope the bugs are cleaned up, and that I get the option to turn off some of the non-personal news I didn't ask for. Nonetheless, I still recommend Zite. Zite was first launched in March of 2011 and there are new versions today for the iPhone and the iPad. %Gallery-172648%
Zite adds an Election 2012 category for political junkies
Count me among the political junkies. I'm getting election news from all over, and now my favorite news aggregator Zite has added a new feature I'm already liking. You might like it as well. Zite is a free iOS news app that keeps track of your interests and produces a unique magazine filled with things you like. Zite already had a Political section, but the problem was it was mixing US News with international political news. Now, with the creation of an Election 2012 category, I can concentrate on seeing news about the upcoming November election. Like all Zite categories, it watches what stories you pull up and how much time you spend on them. Then it fine-tunes itself so the news you get is the news you have shown the most interest in. Over time, Zite gets smarter and smarter about your choices. Zite is available for the iPhone and iPad. If you add the Election category on one of your iOS devices and have a free Zite account, the other device will add it automatically. There isn't an update to the Zite app needed to enable the Election category. It will just be there when you select the option to customize your feeds. %Gallery-163264%
Zite adds Publisher Program to its iOS offerings
There's a new feature on personalized news app Zite today. It's a new program for publishers to to add their content to the app in separate sections that can be ad supported. Partners for the launch include CNN (which owns Zite), The Daily Beast, Motley Fool, the Next Web, Fox Sports, The Huffington Poat and Venture Beat. Each publisher can have its own section within the app, and articles that appear will still utilize the Zite recommendation algorithm. The major benefit of this new feature is to publishers. With Zite as it is, there is no guarantee content would appear within Zite. There is also some benefit for Zite users, because they can be assured content from publications that interest them will appear. The new features should go live today. Users can opt out of any of these new sections, and Zite will work as it did before this update. Zite is a free universal app for iOS devices. I'm quite addicted to Zite and use it multiple times per day. Try the news features and let us know what you think.
New iPhone? Try these must-have free apps
If you have that new iPhone you received for the holidays, you're probably looking to load it up with some apps that will enhance your mobile experience. Let me suggest some of the best of the free apps. Of course, everyone will have their own list, but here are my 5 favorites that I think most new iPhone users will love to use and to show off their new iPhone. If you're a news junkie, by all means get Zite, newly released for the iPhone. It sets you up with news categories of interest to you, then learns what you like by keeping track of stories you click on. Over time, it gets smarter and smarter, so in essence it creates a personalized magazine for you. Their are other news readers and aggregators, but the presentation of stories in Zite and its ability to learn make it my first choice. Glypmse is one of my very favorite apps, the kind of app I would pay for if it wasn't free. While some of the location-tracking functionality it offers is covered by Apple's iOS 5-only Find my Friends app, Glympse is more flexible and cross-platform to boot. With Glympse you send a message (email or SMS) to someone with information on your location; the link is set to expire when you want it to, so your friends can't track you indefinitely. Let's say you are meeting someone for lunch. When they get your message, they click on the included link, and Glympse loads a map showing a moving pin (that's you) along with your ETA. The person you are meeting doesn't need an iPhone, just any web-capable device, including laptops. It's a great service, and in practice I've found it to be super reliable. Tango does what Apple's FaceTime won't do, which is to allow you to video conference with another cellphone using 3G (FaceTime requires WiFi). Tango has added clients for Android and Windows Phone, so it's a great way to visually keep in touch with friends. I even tried it with a friend touring China and it worked. An update last week allows you to leave video mail for your Tango buddies. For more intellectual pursuits, try the recently released TED app. It's a collection of great talks from people in the arts, literature and the sciences. The app has been updated to work with Airplay, so you can stream the audio to another device like an Apple TV 2. I try to watch a TED talk at least once a week, and it's always a treat. Finally, for pure fun, try Action Movie FX. From the creators of the new Mission: Impossible movie, you can add rather impressive special effects to your own movies. With the free version you can add a missile strike or a car crash to your own video. It looks great, and the price is exactly right. Reviews are glowing. There are some other modules you can buy, like a tornado or helicopter crash, but I was fine with the free effects. It's more fun than you should be allowed to have for free. Enjoy that new iPhone. These free apps should help get you started. I'll add one bonus free app to the mix. Don't forget the free TUAW iPhone app to help you keep up with the latest and greatest Apple news. Happy Holidays! Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this post stated that Find my Friends did not allow you to set up an expiring location tracker; it does allow this, via the 'Temporary' group sharing option. It still requires all participants to be using an iOS 5 device, while Glympse is cross-platform (as is Google Latitude, which also offers an iOS app). We apologize for the error. –Ed.
Zite personalized news now comes to the iPhone
Zite is probably the most-used app on my iPad. I love the way it crawls hundreds of thousands of news sites for the stories I am going to find interesting. It's a bit like Pandora for news, and I can give any story a thumbs up or thumbs down while the app constantly tunes the news choices it brings to me. iPhone owners, your day has come. Zite is now a universal app, and it is terrific. If you signed up for a Zite account on your iPad, your preferred topics will appear on the iPhone version when you log in. If you're a new user, Zite will ask for for subjects you're interested in, and you're good to go. I've been using an advance build of Zite for a few days and I can say the GUI for the iPhone version uses screen space very well. Stories scale nicely to the iPhone screen, and navigation is obvious from the get-go. There is one feature that has yet to be added that I think is important. I can't control the order of the topic list, it's just alphabetical. I'd like to re-order that list in a way that makes sense to me, based on my interest in a given category. For an app that is so highly personal, it seems like a big omission. Beyond that, I think Zite is a must have for news followers. Flipboard is also an app I like, and it has just appeared this week in an iPhone incarnation, Still, the on screen presentation and ease of use of Zite makes it my favorite news discovery app. It's free, and I suggest you download it and see if you agree. %Gallery-141411%
Zite adds personal profiles to its iPad news app
If you find yourself fighting over the iPad with your significant other to get your fix of news from Zite, there is finally a happy ending to the debate. Since Zite learns what you like to read and adjusts your personal mix of news accordingly, it was pretty messy if more than one person shared the same iPad. As of today, Zite now allows multiple profiles with a new feature called Sybil, which has the ability to log in to get the news selection that Zite has learned. So if you hand your iPad to someone and they log in under their own profile, the news mix will be personal for that person. There is nothing that prevents a user from having different identities for themselves, so they could change the mix of news and information depending on their mood. I've always given high ratings to Zite, and the more I use it, the more relevant my news content is. If you haven't tried Zite, which is free, go ahead and download it. If you've been a user, but constrained by other people in the household wanting to use it, those problems are solved. An October 12 update added source blocking, so you can ban a particular source of news if you don't want it, Twitter integration and some speed enhancements. The new Sybil feature does not require a new download of the app. The changes are pushed out from the Zite servers and were scheduled to be available at 9:30 AM Pacific time.
Zite adds NFL category to bring you personalized football news
You might have, ahem, noticed, it's football season. Users of the free personal news app Zite now can add their favorite teams and Zite will deliver personalized pigskin stories. Zite is my favorite iPad news discovery app, and this NFL category is going to be just what rabid football fans want. The more stories you look at, the more Zite will know about your interests, and in a short time you'll be getting all the football news you want personalized with your interests in a team, players, or even fantasy league information. Because Zite searches in places you'll likely never see, the stories will likely be ones you might not have seen just crawling around the web on your own. If you are using Zite now, you'll get a notice on the front page to add the football category and from there you can add as many teams as you want to follow.
CNN acquires Zite, plans to operate as independent business
A week ago we reported on the rumors that CNN reportedly purchased iPad magazine app Zite, a magazine aggregater which collects news based on your personal preferences and presents it to you in a magazine-like format. Today, CNN confirmed those rumors. In a post on CNNTech, the company says it bought Zite and plans to operate it as an independent business. And yes, that means that Zite will continue to pull information from several sources -- not just CNN. The app will remain free and will launch without ads, though though you may expect that to change. While CNN does plan to make an Android version of Zite the company says the iPad will remain its "primary platform." While Zite will run as an independent business out of San Fransisco (CNN in headquartered in Atlanta) the cable company does plan to integrate Zite technology into its existing iOS apps. It was rumored that CNN paid up to US$25 million for magazine aggregater app, but the company declined to comment on the purchase price. Zite is a free download from the App Store. You can also read our review of the app here.
Zite searches show some fascinating regional differences
Zite is my favorite news discovery app on the iPad. I find myself using this free app several times a day as it crawls over thousands of websites looking for things I will be interested in. It works by noting my interests, and finding more based on a complex personalization algorithm. I'm constantly finding compelling articles and sharing them with friends and colleagues. Today, Zite shared some data about the terms users select to seed the app. They've broken it down by state, and the results are interesting. It's clear the US is not homogeneous in interests -- that's obvious to most of us -- but it's really clear in the Zite data. Click here for an interactive map and move your mouse over each state. You'll see a variety of search terms over each state. It's not a list of the top search terms by state, but rather how those states differ from other parts of the country. For example, the term 'code warriors' comes up in California, Washington state, Colorado and Massachusetts. 'Disney' is a popular search term in California, Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey and Alabama. 'Beer' is on a lot of Zite users minds in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. 'Aliens' and 'conspiracy' searches in quantity is unique to Nevada. Area 51 anyone? In Alabama, 'Bible Study' slightly beats out 'Lingerie'. Of course if the survey was taken today I'd expect to find 'hurricane' and 'Steve Jobs' searches, but what Zite has done is more interesting, because the differing regional interests we know exist in the US are easy to see on the map. You can read more about the methodology here. It's an interesting stroll through some data that helps illuminate what is on American minds. Take a look at the map. Any surprises for you?
CNN reportedly buys iPad magazine app Zite
Techvibes is reporting that CNN is buying Vancouver-based iPad magazine app Zite for up to US$25 million. Zite is an iPad magazine app that aggregates news based on your personal preferences. Personalized magazine aggregator apps are becoming increasingly popular on the iPad. Other similar apps to Zite include Pulse, Flipboard, AOL Editions, and more. All the apps basically work in the same way: you input your preferences for the stories you want to read, or the app reads your preferences from social media sites and presents you with news stories. CNN's interest in Zite as a stand-alone news aggregator would be an interesting departure from its video-heavy iPad app. While that app does also have print stories, it's possible CNN wants Zite for its underlying technology to incorporate into its existing iPad app, allowing for a more personalized experience for its users. Or, who knows, perhaps CNN wants to get into the magazine aggregator business on all its own, though it would be rather self-limiting if CNN only used its own sources for the aggregator app. After all, the appeal of such apps is that they pull news from multiple news sources around the web. At this time, Zite is still available as a free download from the App Store.
Daily Update for August 23, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
Software update: Zite adds new saving and sharing options
Zite is adding some desirable features to its free, personalized magazine app that should be delivered today. Here's what's new: A new feature called Read it Later. You can save material for offline reading, like on an airplane trip, or even on another device Articles can now be shared with your LinkedIn network, or content can be shared on LinkedIn groups Evernote support. Now you can add a web clip of any article from Zite to an Evernote archive I've been on Zite since I first reviewed it. It's an app I use several times a day, in fact. I'd still like more control of topics Zite gets, and the app really needs the ability to sort the list of topics the way I want them rather than alphabetically. The sharing changes do not require a full app update, but should be visible when you go to share content.
Zite for iPad gets a new version and a new CEO
In previous reviews, I've said Zite is my favorite way to get the latest news on the variety of subjects I follow, and unlike more traditional RSS feed readers, Zite lets me discover stories from websites I would never have seen. Zite pushed out an update yesterday with an in-app browser, performance improvements and clipboard support for long URLs. I think what I like most about Zite is the presentation of the articles. They look very clean, ad free, and are just simply easy on the eyes. Of course, some publishers complained about ads being stripped out, and Zite received some threats in the form of a cease and desist letter from some of the biggest publishers on the Web. The response was to accommodate any publisher with a direct web link, and that's happened with every request Zite has received.
Zite draws the ire of publishers
I liked Zite when I reported on it earlier this month. In fact, I use it every day as a great news and information discovery app on my iPad. The app is free, and for now, still in the App Store with very strong user ratings. There's no love, however, from publishers that claim Zite infringes copyright. A group including Time Inc, Dow Jones, The Washington Post, The Associated Press and others have sent Zite a cease and desist letter claiming that intellectual property is being misappropriated, and the publishers have asked Zite to "immediately stop doing so." The letters goes on to say that Zite, "by systematically reformatting, republishing and redistributing our original content on a mass commercial scale without our permission in your iPad application, Zite directly and adversely impacts our businesses." The publishers, of course, have a valid point. Zite articles aren't direct linked, but it is an option within each story. Publishers can request direct links, and some have. The Zite developers may have to change the app to always supply direct links to articles, rather than reformat them inside the app.
